Human capital is professional service firms' most valuable resource and its quality is closely linked to the quality of its services. The purpose of this study is to investigate how professional service firms appraise their employees. A comparative study between an architecture firm and a management consulting firm is conducted with the aim to identify and explain similarities and differences in performance appraisal. Two qualitative case studies are performed and interviews as well as Documents are used to explore the area. The thesis builds on a critical perspective and it has an explorative approach.

The current thesis is on the rule of law and how the principles of the rule of law are met in thenew Swedish migration process. The migration process has been subjected to criticism duringseveral years and on different occasions. The migrations process is viewed through a ?rightsof the child? perspective, foremost to seek if the rights of the child are met. The children are avulnerable group, not the least in the process of migration.

This thesis investigates how crime prevention is represented with the aim of preventing and reducing youth crime in two crime prevention strategies for Croydon in England and Stockholm in Sweden for the period 2022-2026. The aim of this thesis is to contribute to increased knowledge and deeper understanding about how crime prevention is represented by prevailing discourse in policy Documents against juvenile delinquency in Europe by conducting a comparative analysis. The study was conducted based on Carol Bacchi?s theory ?What?s the problem represented to be?. Three adapted questions from the WPR approach were translated to critically discourse-analytically examine two policy-oriented strategies against youth crime on local level in Croydon and Stockholm.

ABSTRACTDuring the last decades, environmental impacts have increased significantly, much due to the great traffic flows within cities. Therefore, to reduce these impacts and encourage a healthy way of living, it has in recent years become vital to generate safer and more sustainable and flexible modes of transportation. In order to do so, authorities and physical planners must work together to find viable solutions to incorporate in the infrastructure and offer alternative transport modes ? such as walking, cycling and public transportation. The purpose of this thesis is to examine the development of the cycling infrastructure in the city of Västerås and whether it is possible to expand bicycle commuting alongside public transportation. The thesis consequently aims to study how different physical planners within Västerås municipality work with traffic related questions.

Officially, the EU gender policy since 2000 has been guided by the strategy of Gender Mainstreaming. This strategy aims to promote gender equality and is informed by a feminist ontology which stipulates that women are structurally subordinated.In this essay, I examine whether the European Commission has adequately adhered to this gender policy in its free trade negotiations with the ACP (African, Caribbean, and Pacific) countries as part of the Cotonou Agreement. As a result of my text analysis of Documents related to the negotiations, opinion pieces by interested actors and policy papers of the EU, I find that the Commission does not act in accordance to its stated gender policy.To explain this discrepancy between policy intent and actions, I employ postliberal feminist theory and Robert Putnam's Two-Level Game Theory Model. By analyzing statistics and published research, I explore how gender issues are being represented politically on a domestic and international level.My findings show that a key cause of this discrepancy lies in the low levels of female participation in the political institutions of the EU and ACP; a lack of participation that is especially pronounced in the area of international economics. In explaining the constraints on female participation and the prospects of full implementation of the EU's gender policy in the international political economy, I emphasize the role of culturally and historically gendered institutions..

The aim of this master?s thesis is to study the discourses on culture as developed by EU Commission. The method applied is a discoursebased historical analysis, where analysis of arguments and metaphors are functional to the enlightening of the construction of discourses within EU cultural policy. EU official Documents constitute the empirical material studied. The theoretical framework of the thesis draws upon cultural public sphere theory as well instrumentalist cultural policy research.

This masters thesis investigates the relation between China and the Information Society as it is manifested in the UN conference the World Summit on the Information Society WSIS. The first phase of this two-phase conference took place in Geneva 10-12 December 2003, with two Documents, Declaration of principles DP and Plan of action PA, as main results. The information policy is central to an authoritarian rule in its efforts to keep control over the national identity. The thesis investigates the impact that the information revolution and Internet might have on the Chinese national identity through the acceptance of DP and PA in various aspects. With the use of the information science theories by Manuel Castells and Frank Webster, the vision of WSIS was compared with the Chinese information policy.

The aim of this master's thesis is to study how gender equity is discussed and worked with at a Swedish public library, and what potential consequences these discussions will bring. By analysing different types of Documents and interviews with library staff using discourse psychological theories and methods we show that two dominating discourses coexist and determine the direction of how gender equity is discussed. These discourses are argued to create and uphold gender and gender roles within the organisation as well as in society at large.In our study we find that one of the identified discourses has, as one of its consequences, that it preserves and regenerates traditional gender roles. This discourse is mainly used when discussing personnel policies and when recruiting. We call this the discourse of gender role preservation.The second discourse is mainly seen when discussing the public dimension of the library's functions.

Background: Documents and legislation inform us that parts of the public health service of Sweden, at a political level, aim to support people?s sexual health. Statistics show there has been an increase among young woman, seeking help for sexual pain during intercourse. The diagnosis that the media has come to observe lately is vulvar vestibulitis. In general there is a lack of knowledge about the existence of this state of pain and its causes, which impacts woman to get appropriate help and support in time.

The author contacted designers Claesson Koivisto Rune Arkitektkontor in August 2007regarding his Master thesis at KTH. The company had discussed the possibility of creating achair made from molded pulp. The author was taken on as a manager for the project. Theobjective was to produce design documentation for a paper pulp chair which was to belaunched at the in 2008 Milan Furniture Fair. The purpose of the thesis was to develop aproduct with scientific methods as well as to investigate how to make collaboration betweendesigners and engineers easier through communication.The project went through four basic stages: Information, Analysis, Synthesis and Evaluation.Information on paper pulp, molded pulp, chair design, sitting postures and the existingmarket of molded pulp furniture.

Nature-like plantations are areas that, by today?s maintenance procedure usually gains low prioritiy and are forgotten. Most nature-like plantations are currently disadvantaged and have in many cases grown up and formed dense,impenetrable and brushwoody green volumes. These green volumes is rarely used, but usually only fills out gap surfaces. With proper care nature-like plantations can become health promoting environments in the increasinglyhardened urban environments.How vegetation systems work and how trees and shrubs interact is dependent on many factors.

I am in this essay to find out how to successfully combine new development with preservation of natural values, mainly large scale vegetation and ground formations.This is done by studies of three developments. The first development, Engeltofta backe, lies 7 km northeast of Gävle. The expectations of natural preservation were not fullfilled when this area, after the explotation, did not have any vegetation of value left. The second example, Östra Kvarnskogen in the community of Sollentuna, shows, as far as one can tell at the moment, a sucsessful combination of new development and preserved nature. The third example is a development in the community of Kullön. In this area the ambition of combining preservation and development was fullfilled. After studying vital documentation in each planning process, I made interviews with different actors in each of the three processes. I thereafter compared the different Documents and answers from the interviewed persons to find out if there were any significant similarities or differences which could be of importence when natural values is to be preserved in new developments. My conclusion of this study is that it is of great importence to define key expressions often used in the process, such as natural values and preservation.

A school is a social area in which children and adults meet each other. The school is were friendship, love and also enmity arise. The process to establish, maintain, split up and end relationships is constantly continuously. A Childs way of creating relationships is complex. Bullying and similar offending treatment occur and has always been a huge problem in school.

This essay examines the possibilities of writing a counter history about Anne Charlotte Leffler that does not have - like most of the previous studies and literary histories upon Leffler - the Swedish boundaries or the Swedish language as its model. That is to say that this essay, in opposition to most of the hitherto writings on Anne Charlotte Leffler, values the international reception as high as the Swedish reception. It does so by undertaking a case study based on the German review Deutsche Rundschau, which published six short stories by and three articles about Anne Charlotte Leffler between 1884 and 1894. The short stories and the articles in Deutsche Rundschau are compared with two other Documents of reception that contribute to the understanding of the German reception of Leffler. The examination shows that the focus on the international reception can contribute to illuminate aspects of Anne Charlotte Lefflers authorship that previously have been disregarded.

The aim of this Master thesis is to delineate the ideology behind the public library politics in Gothenburg, during 1945-50. The study is an archive survey. To be able to account for the public library politics in Gothenburg during the period, the author has studied Documents in the archive of the public library board in Gothenburg. The description of the politics is the source for the research papers analysis. The thesis principal issue, is on what ideological basis the public library politics has been formulated in Gothenburg, during the period of interest? The concept of ideology is defined as a coherent system of norms and values.